[Advaita-l] Re: yoga and vedanta - Appayya Dikshita's words

[bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com]

In response to bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com, I write:

praNAms Sri Anand Hudli prabhuji
Hare Krishna

AH prabhuji:

We all know and agree that Shankara's teachings are the first and foremost
among those that belong to the advaita paramparA. There is no doubt aout
this. What seems to torment some people is the fact that there are
"differences" between Shankara's teachings and those of later AchAryas.
From
this, a wrong conclusion has been reached: later AchAryas distorted
Shankara's teachings to such an extent that we should not follow them at
all
but we should stick to only teachings that can be shown to have directly
come from Shankara and none other than Shankara. While the attitude of
studying Shankara's teachings is certainly praiseworthy, dismissing the
later AchAryas' works as not representing advaitic philosophy is wrong.

bhaskar :

prabhuji, IMHO the issue here is NOT whether latter commentators
representing *advaita philosophy* in general...but whether these
commentators correctly interpreting advaita vEdAnta as *advocated by
shankara* in particular.  SS thinks vyAkhyAnakAra-s are not upto the mark
while claiming their works as shankara phil.  Ofcourse, he based his
remarks on his extensive studies in shankara & later commentaries for more
than six decades!!  He never ever claims anything baselessly without
quoting shankara in original text..I think this would be the punch point in
SS works to ascertain whether later prasthAna-s like paNchapAdika or
bhAmati true to shankara bhAshya!!

AH prabhuji:

On the contraray, Shankara agrees with another vedAntic viewpoint as long
as
it has the same conclusion, even if it is not the same as his own. See, for
example, sUtra-bhAShya 1.4.3 where Shankara agrees with another viewpoint
since it also has the same effect, ie. denying that pradhAna is the cause
of
the world. So it is not proper to say that Shankara insists that only his
method is correct.

bhaskar :

I've seen this portion of bhAshya y'day...as you know before concluding his
commentary in acceptance, shankara clearly expressed his disagreement with
vruttikAra's mata!! if the shankara's concurrence is straightforward, he
would have not written his objection before partially agreeing with one
particular point!!  as we all know, shankara agrees to some view points  as
propagated by pUrvamImAmsaka-s, pradhAna malla sAnkhyA-s & yOga
system...ofcourse there is a scope for other methods as long as those are
in line with shankara matha...shankara himself says this by asserting
*paramataM apratishiddhaM anumataM bhavati*.

Anand

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar